412 Ever-sporting Varieties 



however, is not to be reached easily. It oft 

 requires several successive generations gro' 

 from seed collected from the most atavistic spi 

 imens. And even such selected strains are 

 ways reverting to the crested type. There 

 no transgression, no springing over into 

 purely atavistic form, such as may be suppos 

 to have once been the ancestor of the pres€ 

 cockscomb. The variety includes crests a 

 atavists, and may be perpetuated from boi 

 Obviously every gardener would select the see 

 of the brightest crests, but with care the f 

 crests may be recovered, even from the woi 

 reversionists in two or three generations. It 

 a double race of quite the same constitution 

 the twisted teasels. 



My second point is a direct proof of this i 

 sertion, but made with a fasciated variety of 

 wild species. I took for my experiment t 

 rough hawksbeard. In the summer of 1895 

 isolated some atavists of the fifth generation 

 my race, which, by ordinary selection, gave 

 the average from 20-40^ of fasciated ster 

 My isolated atavists bore abundant fruit, a: 

 from these I had the next year a set of some 3 

 plants, out of which about 20^ had broaden 

 and linear rosettes. This proportion cor 

 sponds with the degree of inheritance which 

 shown in many years by the largest and stroi 



